Campo Las Palmas

We arrived last night to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, where we’ll be on a goodwill trip, so to speak. In addition to numerous business meetings taking place, we’ll be holding a tryout this morning for some of our baseball operations group to see, as well as touring the Dodgers’ facility each. I was fortunate to come down here about five years ago for the first time, but much like Dodgertown, you can’t really ever get enough of Campo Las Palmas.

Actually, my recollections from the first visit are just that – Dodgertown. The academy here feels like a mini-Dodgertown in the DR. The feel is the same, only everyone is speaking Spanish!

Tommy Lasorda, Ned Colletti, Ralph Avila and Jose Vizcaino are the key names that you’ll recognize among the group here. We all flew from Los Angeles yesterday and while we were waiting for our connecting flight in Miami, Tommy Lasorda was telling stories from his years of managing here in the winter. He actually told one about getting thrown in a jail in the city of Santiago for arguing with the umpire…it was priceless. Many of the players you know from the 70s were here with him, including Rick Rhoden, Charlie Hough, Steve Garvey, Bobby Valentine, Doug Rau, Tom Paciorek and others. Tommy thinks that their time playing here helped them reach the big leagues a year or two earlier than they would have otherwise.

As for modern day Dominican baseball, Jose Vizcaino likens it to good Triple-A, as he said that the two top teams,Licey and the Aguilas could probably beat most Triple-A teams. As many of you have read, Rafael Furcal attributes his hot start this year to playing down here in the winter.

Last night, Ralph was showing us some of the photos of the land that Campo Las Palmas was built on before it was built. It’s really amazing to see how far baseball has come in this country and what a huge impact it has had on the Major Leagues.

Well, it’s 8 a.m. here and we’re off to the academy shortly, but I’ll post again late tonight after our news conference.

Josh, thank you for keeping us up to date as always.
******************************************************************** Can you tell us a bit more about the new HD cameras that were installed in the infield dirt before the last homestand? They’re buried at home, first and the pitchers mound… and they look much better than the old Standard Definition cameras which didn’t fill the whole 16:9 screen like the new ones do… and now in High Definition! I thought those cameras were supposed to be a lot larger and we’d never see the kind of detail we now do… and yet so very close to the action. I know this was someone’s brain-child and I’d like to thank them for adding to the viewing experience. Living in Idaho doesn’t afford me the opportunity to attend many games, but the HD technology is such that I almost feel like I’m there… the views are stunning to say the least! Keep up the great work with the game productions!

Bowa sending DeWitt was ridiculous. I understand there were two outs, but it was not going to be even close unless the throw was utterly ridiculous and our hottest hitter this year so far FURCAL WAS COMING UP!

Great W… Sammy was back to his normal velocity of 94 which was nice to see. The past couple games i saw him pitch at he was having a hard time getting about 92.. That power fastball that he can spot soo well is really what makes him so affective, and i think is somewhat overlooked by his equally accurate slider- as alfredo and jacobs noticed tonight.

I have to correct myself here, a while back I said Kemp instead of Kent.
What I meant to say was We can talk about our youth movement but it’s much easier with KENT onboard.
Which I’m sure we all agree he is truly a hall of famer within the white lines.
Hard to understand otherwise but I think he leads by example.
LIKE HE DID TONIGHT.

Wonderful, Amazing 7 to 6 victory by our Beloved Los Angeles Dodgers over the Florida Marlins. Superman, The Man of Steel, Jeff Kent with his 2 always clutch hits and 3 RBI’S leading the way with Matt Kemp’s 2 hits and 2 runs scored and Andre Ethier’s 2 hits and 3 runs scored. Blake Dewitt’s 2 for 4 night at the plate, just super as well. Derek Lowe, Scott Proctor, Joe Beimel and Takashi Saito were simply fantastic! All the rest of the Los Angeles Dodgers were very focused and great! Four games won in a row and counting! Let the Bells Ring in Dodgertown, for the Glorious Los Angeles Dodgers are for real and 2008 will be majestic all the way to Our Seventh World Series Championship!

Nice win. 4 straight, 5 of 6, 6 of 8. Starting to pick up here (and not surprisingly, it really picked up when Russel Martin got going).
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I was at work so I only heard half of the bobble at first base, but it sounded like Loney bobbled it but Lowe was slow covering. DodgerThoughts posted a story where Lowe gave a ridiculous interview that us soft West Coasters get distracted. Lowe’s a good pitcher, but maybe he should take advantage of that sports psychologist the team hired. He seems to lose focus sometimes, forget about runners on second. I think it’s an East Coaster problem (sorry pierreeastmeetswest–just a joke, though I do think Lowe sometimes has a brain fart, and wonder if this was one).
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I also missed the play where Bowa sent DeWitt. 1) Did Bowa send him or did DeWitt run through the sign? 2) Was it that bad in terms of not being close? I tend to prefer a more aggressive move–taking the extra base, trying to score, etc. But I see the point about holding up with Furcal coming up.
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Most importantly, they all battled through–Lowe got the final out of the inning, the bullpen locked it down even with Broxton unavailable, Ethier gets on, Kemp battles to try to be safe, Kent comes through CLUTCH, and Saito deals.

leekfink – I wonder how Derek Lowe explains the recent successes of the west-coast based Angels at the same time? Of course, I expect sinkers from Lowe, not critical reasoning and well-constructed argument.
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The DeWitt was nowhere near close; Vin would have called it “out from you to me”.
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As you point out, the win is in the books; when they win, the transgressions are easier to take.

I’ll agree with that assessment of Jeff Kent too. He can be difficult to like, and his *** is redder than Larry the Cable Guy’s neck, but I can’t believe he still produces like he does at his age. As a 2B, his range has dropped dramatically, and he has to cheat too much toward second in DP situations, but his hands are still pretty good and he’s still among the best on the turn.
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Just have him leave the young player mentoring to those with more aptitude for it.

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